


inscrutable

by weatheredlaw



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, POV Second Person, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 22:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19385659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: because you are crowley and he is aziraphale and you cannot help but drift to his side.





	inscrutable

**Author's Note:**

> i've been experimenting a LOT lately with second person pov prose stuff. crowley and aziraphale were kind of begging for it. everything is lowercase for a reason, that reason being i'm almost 30 and i do what i want.

your name is crawley, but it’s not really doing it for you. it’s what you’re called, it’s what you’ve _been_ called for a very, very long time, but you think it’s time for a change.

your name is crawley, and you are a snake. your body changes and shifts and there are moments when the sun catches you just so, when it strikes just _right_ , and you think you could be a snake for the rest of eternity.

                    but he probably wouldn’t like it, and you find him fascinating.   
                    he probably wouldn’t appreciate it, and you need to see him again.   
                    he certainly wouldn’t enjoy it, and you need to know more about him.

your name is crawley and his name is aziraphale and if you are a snake for the rest of eternity, you cannot stand under his wings when it rains.

 

* * *

 

your name ~~is~~ _was_ crawley, but it’s not anymore.

          (you tasted a hundred names on your tongue before you decided on _crowley._ they tasted like ash,   
          sometimes, like figs others. _crowley_ tastes like...apples, and you like the idea of that.)

your name is crowley and every time you see him, the world is changing. it might be a sign, it might mean he is some kind of harbinger, some kind of signal you should be paying attention to.

          well — you _are_ paying attention, but not in the way you should.

you appear by his side and unsettle him the first few times, but eventually, he grows used to you. eventually, he seems to enjoy your presence.

                    eventually, you start enjoying his.

 

* * *

 

your name is crowley, and these are the monsters you can name:

          hastur and ligur; beelzebub; gabriel; jack the ripper; the pope — they can be listed in any order.

your name is crowley, and the lords of hell are not necessarily monsters, but they are not the biggest fans of _you._ they say things, when you go back down to let everyone know how things are going. they say things about _you_ whenever you drag yourself back to hell to lie about this thing or the next. and you don’t _care_ , it doesn’t bother you —

          but it does. and you know it does. you know their words get right under your skin and start   
          living there, taking root there. you know when you close your eyes at night and reach for   
          something, _anything_ in the darkness to make it right — you hate them. and you hate yourself.

                    you are a demon. you are a dissenter. you are a rebel. when heaven tried to tell you   
                     _just behave_ — you said no. when heaven tried to tell you _not so many questions, angel_ —   
                    you said no.

          (it has been a long time since the feathers in your wings burned white and clean, but you   
           _remember._ you can sometimes see the shadow of who you used to be in the little things you do.

                              mostly — you see it in _him._ )

because you are crowley and he is aziraphale and you cannot help but drift to his side. you cannot help but seek him out in the sea of the world, settle in close, and sneer in his general direction. he doesn’t take you seriously, and that’s alright. sometimes his hand rests upon your wrist. you don’t think he notices — but _you do._

                    (“well i’ll be _damned_ ,” he’ll say, sometimes. you make a joke — _it’s not so bad;  
                              you get used to it_ — )

          he laughs — uncomfortable, at first; the second time he understands what you mean; after that   
          he just thinks you’re being incorrigible. he calls you that, as you are walking away from the globe,   
          as you say something about how _dull_ you find othello —

                    “you are _incorrigible_ , crowley. do you know that?”

                    “wouldn’t be much of a demon if i wasn’t. no hope for me and whatnot.”

                    “oh,” he says, your angel —

                                        (your angel — it is a thought that arrives unbidden, and without warning.   
                                        later, you will try to purge it from your mind, but it will live there and grow   
                                        there and you will think of him that way for the _rest of eternity_.

                                                  hastur might be right. you really have gone a bit soft.)

                    but — “oh,” he says, _your angel_. “i suppose you’re right.”

 

* * *

 

you are crowley and you are a demon; he is aziraphale and he is an angel and when you save him from himself for the fifth time he says, “i thought you didn’t want me around.”

there are eight hundred and ninety-three terrible things you could say to him. _you_ decide to say —

          “world wouldn’t be any fun without you in it, angel.”

          you have no idea why you said that. why you’d ever say that. but you do know one thing:   
          it is absolutely, one _hundred_ percent true. you have tried to imagine a world without   
          aziraphale and the calculus of that always tells you one thing: whatever world you live in,   
          it’s not worth _staying_ in if he isn’t there.

 

* * *

 

you are crowley and the thermos of holy water weighs heavy in your hands.

          “the holiest,” your angel says, and you both feel the _unbearable_ ache in his words. you want to   
          touch him, but you shouldn’t. you want to comfort him, but you can’t. you want him to know that   
          it’s not _for_ you, but you’re not entirely sure that that’s _true_ , or that he would understand.

                    (and when it comes down to it, _could you?_ could you do the long walk into   
                    total annihilation? could you swallow it down, extinguish yourself like...like _that?_ )

“you go too fast for me, crowley,” he says, and that _pins you down._ you deserve to be dissected, you deserve to feel the scalpel of his words. you _deserve_ to feel the absolute _nothing_ that grows in your chest when he says that to you.

          (it doesn’t mean what it should mean — that you are a terrible driver.   
                    it means what it has always meant.

                              incorrigible crowley.   
                              impossible crowley.   
                              inscrutable, intractable, _irredeemable_ crowley.

                                        you are the one meant to be alone.)

 

* * *

 

          “come up with something or i’ll never talk to you again,” he says.

 _well,_ you think. _we can’t have **that.**_

 

* * *

 

your name is crowley and disaster has been averted. your angel — your clever, keen, _canny_ angel — would have been burned away in hellfire, but _that_ particular crisis is averted as well.

          (later, you will wake from a sleep you don’t need in a cold sweat that is far from necessary   
          thinking about The End. thinking about hellfire and holy water. you could call him, but that   
          isn’t any more necessary than all the sleeping you’ve been doing lately.

                              your plants are worried about you.)

you think about the art of sliding your hand into his when he isn’t pay attention, if only to make yourself aware of his existence. of his…

_ineffability._

because that is what you are to one another, isn’t it? that is what you have always been to one another, right?

          he is your unknowable angel, and you his impossible demon. you can say that, now.   
          you can say that you are his.

                    why, on this terrible, beautiful, painful, glorious, _bleeding_ earth would you want to be   
                              anything else?

 

* * *

 

your name is crowley and your angel has found you out. at least, that’s how it _feels._

          “for someone so _clever_ ,” he says. “you really can be quite daft.”

          “don’t toss my words back at me, angel,” you snarl, because you are a demon, and demons _snarl._

          “oh, my dear.” he cups your cheek and that should set you aflame here and now. his touch should   
          be too holy for you, particularly one that is placed alongside a look in his eyes you would rather   
          stamp out than have to face head on.

                    you think he is going to kiss you.   
                    he doesn’t.

                    you think he is going to push you away.   
                    he doesn’t.

                    he presses his forehead to yours and you have always wondered why humans do that   
                    but the moment he does — _you understand._

                              it tells you things you’d have never known otherwise;   
                              how he loves you — with all his being;   
                              why he loves you — because you _never_ left;

                                        it tells you things you need to know:   
                                                   _you are so worthy, my love. you always have been._

_you always will be._

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @ weatheredlaw


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